


Frame-Perfect

by Nautilusopus



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cheating, Child Soldiers, Compilation is still not canon and never will be to anything I write, Dark Comedy, Dumb 14 Year Old Becomes God More At 6, Forced Relationship, Gen, Hacking, I Want To Get Off Todd Howard's Wild Ride, Pre-Nibelheim Incident, Reality Bending, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Unfinished and Unbeta'd, bethesda logic, that's a fun use of that tag huh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-19 10:42:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20329804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nautilusopus/pseuds/Nautilusopus
Summary: Cloud would have never stood a chance anyway. Not in Wutai, not in Soldier, not going back to Nibelheim. It was no wonder he had no one but Ma.What else was he supposed to do but... give himself a bit of an advantage? It couldn't hurt.(Fixed formatting issues since AO3 hates fake markup)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **THIS FIC IS UNFINISHED.**
> 
> What this means is that the outlining process was never concluded, meaning I do-but-don't know how this one ends. Thus, I cannot guarantee regular chapters of this (I'd estimate it at maybe 5-10 if it ever gets done). Still, it was decided that you guys would rather see the chapters I have so far, at least, instead of just having this thing sit around indefinitely. 
> 
> The fic itself may have minor edits made to it in the future if I ever get a concrete outline going. Title and summary are both prone to change as well. 
> 
> This fic is based off a joke that I took entirely too seriously while complaining about Crisis Core: **[[...]but also #4 makes me want fic where teenage Cloud actually found the fourth wall and started using cheat codes because you can’t convince me teenage Cloud WOULDN’T use cheat codes to make friends AND still invariably fuck it up.](https://auncyen.tumblr.com/post/164689940270/top-5-crisis-core-moments-yeah-this-is-evil)**
> 
> You asked. 
> 
> (August 19th is true OG canon birthday.)

Cloud's chest really, really, _really _hurt.

Honestly, a lot of things hurt right now. His legs from running; his arms from climbing; his forehead from when he'd tripped over a tree root and face-planted directly into another; his elbow from when he'd been crawling through the dirt on his belly and driven it right into a rock. But especially in this moment, his chest. He was barely managing to choke down lungful after lungful of muggy jungle air for fear alone. His heart was hammering in his chest so loud that he was certain every single 'taian in a five hundred metre radius could hear it.

There were four of them left, and four people in their squad. They'd started with more, but the natives knew the forests of Wutai better than they did, and it didn't take long for their numbers to start dwindling. Not a minute ago, they'd lost their commanding officer, Keaty, after he'd panicked and run ahead straight into a tripwire. One minute he'd been plowing through stalks of bamboo, the next they'd been plowing through him, the sharpened struts springing up out of nowhere and impaling him neatly through the eye. He'd been the oldest one in the group at sixteen, a whole two years older than Cloud. The youngest, at twelve, was too busy curling up into a ball and smothering his own tears to be of any use. The other two, both fifteen, only had two completed assignments under their belt, while Cloud had four. He suddenly realised he was technically in charge.

He had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

The idea was to go in, kill whatever leftover pockets of resistance they were pointed at, and leave. But that was a lot easier said than done. The 'taians hadn't exactly put up signs signalling where they were, unless you counted spike-filled pits and grenades rigged to explode instantly as signs. And in a way they'd worked, because after running headlong into booby trap after booby trap, they'd finally found some actual rebels. The war might have been officially over when Lord Godo Kisaragi had surrendered, but it was Cloud's job to impress upon the natives this point.

But he didn't really want to, because his chest hurt, and he was afraid, and the second he peeked out of cover he'd be shot in the head, and that would be the end of it.

He was gonna die here, in the middle of the woods on some backwater island full of savages, in the name of Shinra and Tomorrow's Opportunities (trademark, he was sure). He'd done nothing with his life. He had no friends. His career was over before it had even started, signed away into the military police and infantry, where he'd spend the rest of his days either shooting 'taians or shooting unruly civilians until the day someone shot him. His dreams -- everything he'd ever wanted out of life -- _Soldier _\-- had died almost as soon as he'd gotten here, and for some reason he hadn't died along with them. He could never return home, to a town that would still hate him, to a mother that would doubtless be disgusted by him. He'd failed her, he'd failed himself, he'd failed Tifa, he'd failed everyone. He'd lost everything.

This was it. This was his life now. It was empty, and meaningless, and this was it. Forever.

A strange calm washed over him at the thought. If that was the truth, it made the next bit a whole lot easier. He might as well go out doing something constructive.

He signalled to the others to head downstream on the count of three. They stared at him as though he'd gone mad. Maybe he had. It didn't really matter anymore, they would either die or they wouldn't. Cloud, on the other hand...

...Well, he'd already set his course months ago, when he'd left Nibelheim to join Soldier. He knew exactly how things were going to go from here on out. Might as well be right about it.

Cloud stood up and sprinted towards where he was reasonably sure one of the shooters was hidden.

He didn't even manage to get his first shot off before the first bullet found him, punching through his chest, tearing open a hole in his back on the way out, bringing him to his knees. It was pain like he'd never known it before.

_Man, you didn't know shit about your chest hurting_, he mused to himself, as the next one ripped through his gut, causing him to collapse entirely. With any luck, the others would have been able to escape by now.

He lay there, shivering as his heart valiantly kept pumping blood through what was left of his arteries and onto the forest floor. It had been so unbearably hot a moment ago, in stark contrast to the chill slowly spreading through his body. His breath came through in a shaky rattle as his lungs filled with fluid, which dribbled out the corner of his mouth.

It didn't hurt so much anymore, and the cold was giving way to numbness. His vision was going dim, and growing brighter and brighter was a gentle green light. It grew as the world went dark entirely.

It was the gods in the mountain, he thought to himself. Maybe the Wutaians had been nice enough to burn his body so he could return to where he'd been forged, and he could wait for Ma there, and apologise for leaving her alone.

He was so close to it now, drifting towards it as though caught in some current he couldn't see or touch.

What a waste his life had been. The gods were probably disappointed. That's probably why he was in so much pain again. In fact, his chest really, really, _really_ hurt right now.

His eyes snapped open, and he found himself crouched behind the fallen tree they'd taken cover in.

He stood straight up, looking around wildly for his body. Was he not dead? Didn't he die? Did he imagine the whole thing? What the hell was --

Cloud received a bullet through his head as an answer, and that was all the thinking he got to do on that particular subject for the time being.

But his chest still really hurt, especially since he was crouched behind this tree and couldn't breathe, and...

He let out a strangled wail. Was this part of dying? Was some god taunting him, making him relive being shot again and again before he was finally allowed to pass away? He barely even noticed he'd given away their position with the noise he'd made until a grenade landed in front of him, filling him with shrapnel a second later. He was lying on the ground bleeding out again, along with the rest of his squad. One of the 'taians had kicked away his gun, and he looked up at him pleadingly as the world continued to slowly, slowly fade away.

At least, until he realised he was sitting behind a fallen tree with a sore chest.

This time Cloud clamped a hand over his mouth, choking the noise he nearly made back down.

He'd died. He'd died _three times._ He was certain of it. His vision was still strangely blurry, so maybe this was just a near-death experience. Or -- it wasn't blurry, there were... things, floating around everyone's heads. In front of his, too. Numbers. And words at the corner of his vision, rapidly fading, that read **[STATE 1 LOADED]**. He stared at one above the head of his squadmate, and it further broke itself down into more numbers, labelled with abbreviations he didn't recognise, and even more numbers below those ones.

_I've finally cracked up,_ thought Cloud, which wouldn't surprise him. It happened all the time, especially to MPs his age. And he _had_ just tried to die a few minutes ago.

So then why was he still here?

"You have a plan?" whispered one of his squadmates, apparently seeing the thoughtful look on his face. She had numbers, too.

Only one way to find out.

"Yeah -- hold this," he replied, removing his helmet and dumping it into her hands. The angle was a little difficult with the rifle considering he was still crouched, so instead he withdrew his sidearm, a standard-issue handgun. His hands were shaking with the knowledge of what he was about to do as he removed the safety and levelled the barrel at his temple, and he steadied them with the fact that he _had to know_. The last thing he heard as he pulled the trigger was a muffled scream from her as he --

Was crouched behind the tree, feeling as though someone had kicked him in the chest. Man, did it really hurt.

He couldn't die. Either he was crazy, or he couldn't die. And Cloud wasn't entirely sure about the crazy bit anymore. He looked over at his squadmate and found her crouched in a panic, with his helmet securely still on his own head.

He saw the words **[STATE 1 LOADED] **fade out again, and he realised there were other words, too. A lot of the numbers had labels, and some labels had numbers. There must have been thousands of them. He squeezed his eyes shut, but they still displayed themselves on the back of his eyelids, brighter than ever.

Among one of them, showing slightly more prominently, was **[WUTAI:(**EVENT JUNGLE 5)**=NO]**.

Is that where they were now? "Jungle 5." He wasn't sure what exactly was "5" about it. He wondered if there was a **[WUTAI:(**EVENT JUNGLE 4)**]**.

As soon as he'd thought it, a set of letters drifted into view above it -- **[WUTAI:(**EVENT VILLAGE 4)**=YES]**. Village, not jungle. And above it, he could see **[WUTAI:(**EVENT JUNGLE 3)**=YES]**.

These were missions. _His_ missions. Just two weeks before this, his squad had been sent to this village on the coast. He'd put his hand down on a nail in the middle of a firefight and had been so full of adrenaline he didn't even realise it until the mission was over and half the houses had been burned to the ground. And before that... it had been the jungle again, where Shinra had basically sent them in to "see what happened" and they'd immediately stumbled straight into a bunch of landmines.

This one was still "no", though. "No", what?

The **NO** suddenly began to grow more pronounced, its outlines more defined compared to the text around it. It felt brittle, somehow, compared to the rest of the letters around it. After another moment, it simply disappeared.

Cloud swallowed and imagined a **YES** there instead. The text neatly printed itself inside the line, like letters from a typewriter. The words surrounding it seemed to tighten, like steel cable, and **[WUTAI:(**EVENT JUNGLE 3)**=YES] **seemed to sink into the background among all the other words and numbers vying for his attention. Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

He screamed and spun around to find a nurse offering him a cup of water, and an IV in his arm. His head was pounding, and the noise coming from the blades of the helicopter he was in weren't helping either. The world tipped and spun around him.

"Dehydration," she said to someone over her shoulder, "and low blood sugar. Nothing a trained healer and a couple days of rest and food won't fix."

Cloud blinked, then slowly took the cup, looking around the helicopter in bewilderment.

"How... how did I get here?" he asked slowly.

"The confusion's normal," said the nurse. "Drink the water. It'll help."

Cloud was reasonably sure the water would _not_ help, but he accepted the cup anyway and began taking small, careful sips. Maybe it had all been a delusion after all.

"What's going on?" he asked again.

"Do you not remember?"

Cloud shook his head.

"We were pinned for a while..." he began. And then... he'd died, hadn't he? But --

"You were two days over, so we sent a search party," explained the nurse. "You were down there for a while without water. You and Dunne were in the worst shape."

That meant he'd lost four days. He'd just lost four days somehow. It didn't feel like more than four minutes. And Dunne was the twelve year-old -- the others were okay, then.

The water did help with the headache, at least. And his vision seemed to be clearing up, too.

As did the words drifting across his vision.

It was real? It was all real. He'd died, and then something had put him back, and he'd... done _something_ to the mission, and apparently it was finished now. Or at least, these people seemed to think it was.

His body certainly felt like it had spent ten days total without food or water in a jungle, at least. There was mud caked in places he didn't remember it being caked. He stared at the IV bag. There were numbers associated with that, too.

**[ITEMID(**SALINEMEDICAL2) **QUANTITY=247]**

The number was slowly but surely ticking down as it trickled through the needle into his veins. The nurse gave no indication whatsoever that anything was out of the ordinary.

He looked at the nurse, then, and the numbers that seemed to cluster around her with little labels next to them. Ones he wasn't sure what was meant by them, like **[STR] **and **[VIT] **and **[DEX] **and **[SPR]**, and others he did understand, like **[LUCK] **and **[MAGIC]**. He stared at the number next to **[MAGIC]** and watched it become brittle the way **[NO] **had before. Changeable.

He stopped immediately. He'd already lost four days somehow. This needed testing.

His mind was reeling the entire trip back to the barracks in Midgar. There were numbers everywhere. Had they always been there? Were there _other _people that couldn't die? Did _everything _have numbers, or were there things that couldn't have numbers at all_?_ What were the rules for the things that didn't seem to have as many as others?

He'd been ordered into the infirmary overnight when he actually arrived back in Midgar, which was fine by him. He waited impatiently for everyone to clear out, and for Dunne to fall asleep in the bed next to him. He stared at the folding chair next to his bed, which was helpfully labelled **[ITEMID:=(FOLDINGCHAIR)] **in sunny yellow.

_Sure is,_he thought dully.

Eventually, he heard Dunne's breathing slow and settle into quiet snores. As if he needed confirmation, he saw the words **[STATUS:SLEEP] **appear over his head, under the rest of his numbers.

Cloud sat up and looked around. Even in the dark, the words were all as clear as day. He could see a few more marked around the door, and decided not to touch those for now. He had no idea what was going on as it was.

He stared at Dunne. There were a few values on top of the rest, in blue instead of yellow. **[HEALTH.MAXVAL=250]**, and another beside it -- **[HEALTH.VAL=130]**.

He compared it to his own -- **380** and **200 **respectively. Health was health, and they were sick. That made sense. So what would happen if he changed that?

He wasn't quite brave enough to try it out on himself. Instead he turned his attention (somewhat guiltily) back to Dunne, and, still shaking slightly, wrote: **[HEALTH.VAL=131]**.

...Nothing appeared to happen. But he looked okay, and he was still breathing. He hadn't woken up, either, so it didn't seem to be painful.

Well, at least he couldn't die. Maybe Cloud could risk testing things out on himself after all.

He brought up his own numbers again, and tentatively changed his **HEALTH.VAL** number to **201**. He flinched as he let the words settle back down, but nothing felt any different. Maybe small changes like that didn't matter much. He tried a bigger change. **230**. Immediately, the residual pain in his chest vanished, and he carefully slid himself out of bed, testing out the strength in his legs. They felt fine, even if he was still pretty dizzy.

So, then, how much of a change was enough to matter? Was it relative? He quickly set the number to **380**.

The difference was again immediately noticeable. He felt good -- better than he had in weeks, well-rested and awake. A sore spot he didn't even realise he'd had from biting his lip while chewing disappeared along with his fatigue.

Cloud felt dizzy again, and this time it wasn't from dehydration.

He was effectively a god. All these numbers -- he could change _all _of them. He couldn't be killed. The world and everyone in it was his oyster.

He had to tell someone. He had to...

Ma? But she was all the way back in Nibelheim. So was Tifa, and he barely even knew her. He couldn't think of anyone else.

But -- but maybe there could be. If he'd cured himself, then maybe he could fix other things, too.

He brought up more more of his numbers, shaking from excitement. **[LUCK] **\-- that was at **15**. Abysmal. No wonder everything he did seemed to go wrong. He set it to **1000**. The number flashed, then ticked down to **255**. He frowned. Why that number in particular? His number for his "health" was **380**, so clearly they could go higher than that. Unless some numbers just couldn't?

**[MAGIC]** was the other one he'd recognised, at **230**. Again, he tried to set it to **1000**, and again it ticked back down to **255**. Odd. At least his magic was objectively good already. He felt a twinge of pride in his chest, which was immediately followed by shame. All the magic in the world hadn't helped him pass the physical exams, or the mako scratch test. Were there numbers for that, too? Something physical.

Maybe -- **[STR] **suddenly became much more prominent in his vision. Strength, perhaps? He set it to **255** as well. He still didn't feel any different. Maybe -- maybe this was his ticket into Soldier.

These numbers, the ones that seemed to pop right up at first glance, all seemed to be about what he could do. He set them all to **255**, figuring that he'd want himself to be as good as he could possibly be anyway. He went further down the list, and found **[GIL.VAL=23]**.

Gil as in money, gil? Maybe he could send some back to Ma. If he came home rich, it'd be almost as good as coming home a Soldier. Almost.

What else... the "state". It had appeared right after he died. He fished around for it and found it in the corner of his vision again. Below **[STATE 1]** were several lines of dashes. They seemed to go on forever. He curiously pressed into one of the lines which were "brittle" the same way the numbers were, and **[STATE 2]** appeared beneath the first. Whatever that meant. Perhaps if he died again, he'd know.

Had it worked, though? He supposed he wouldn't know until he was actually back on his feet. He crawled back under the covers, feeling more than a little disappointed. He'd have to wait until tomorrow.

Maybe there was a way to make tomorrow come faster? No, he quickly decided -- he didn't want to miss anything important. He still had no idea how this worked. It'd help if he had a bigger sample size.

But he was too excited to sleep. But he couldn't keep touching things if he didn't know what they did. But he couldn't sleep. But he had to sleep. There had to be -- right. Of course.

First, as a matter of courtesy, he brought up Dunne's numbers and set his **[HEALTH.VAL]** to 250. Couldn't hurt.

Then he went back into his own numbers again and made another change: **[STATUS:SLEEP]**.

He was out before his head hit the pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is technically all I have at the moment, apart from this one sequence later that I need something to connect to. Thank you Raaj for the original prompt technically.

"You're... discharged, I guess," said the very puzzled nurse that had come in to check on him. It was one thing for his condition to improve dramatically, but apparently Dunne had had a chronic sinus infection that has also mysteriously cleared up overnight. Oh well.

Cloud practically exploded out of the infirmary. Given the fact that he'd been in Wutai for ten days, the company had opted to give him a three day pass. Officially the line was that it was so he had time to "mentally recover" and because he'd (apparently?) led his squad to safety in a "high pressure environment" with no commanding officer, but in all likelihood they probably didn't want to pay him extra for being gone that long. Still, free time was free time, and coupled with the weekend that left him with five whole days to experiment barring some sort of emergency.

As it turned out, upon his entry to one of the training rooms, most people did _not_ have their numbers set to 255.

Cloud had always been decently fast, but he'd certainly never been fast enough to manage a four minute mile. It wasn't Soldier speed, to be sure; how, then, could Soldiers run even faster than that if 255 was the highest you could go? Something to investigate later. But it was faster than he'd ever managed to run in his life, and effortless to boot. He was barely even out of breath. He slowed to a leisurely jog around the track, backpedaling to take a look around, and realised he'd lapped everyone else using it at least twice.

One of them called out to him. It was a snide jab about his size this time, everyone always defaulted to the same three jokes. Cloud was barely listening, instead staring at the **[STR.VAL=165]** hovering next to his head.

_I could slam dunk this guy into next week, _he thought giddily.

There were a few that did have 255s, though -- mostly Soldier, and even then it seemed to be a rarity. He caught a glimpse of Sephiroth passing by the door of the infirmary, with **[VIT.VAL=250]**. His numbers were better than Sephiroth. He was _better than Sephiroth_.

Still, there was a lot to learn about all of this before he touched anything else. There were other requirements for Soldier. Tactical crap and stuff. He spent the next couple hours following various members of Soldier, comparing values. Could he find the same place in his block of numbers? If so, could it be changed?

The Soldier Second Class he was watching had stopped to chat with a group of friends now. He'd said something funny, and the rest were either laughing or glowering at him. He was shoved affectionately by someone else, whom he immediately shoved back. He was smiling, listening intently to what the others were saying with a twinkle in his eye even though he couldn't possibly be listening to all of them at once, just enjoying that they were there.

Something painful clenched in his chest as he watched them make plans for later that week. Once he made Soldier, he'd be in that group. And someone would shove him, messing up his hair, and he'd laugh it off and tell everyone about the day he'd had. And they'd all listen, because they cared about what he had to say, because the things he had to say were worthwhile and so was he. He'd made it into Soldier, hadn't he? Maybe he'd smile at Cloud that way, too.

Did Soldiers actually touch each other beyond shoving? It'd be nice, to just sit next to someone --

"You've got yourself a shadow, dude," said one of the Soldiers. Cloud heart nearly stopped (but not really, because he'd certainly experienced _that_ already), and he quickly ducked back around the corner. Maybe they'd go back to talking. They were in Soldier, people must stare at them all the time.

"You need something?"

The Second that had been telling jokes was suddenly looming over him. Cloud snapped to attention immediately.

"No s-sir," he said quickly, feeling his mouth go dry.

"Then why were you watching me?" he asked. "Enjoying the view?"

Cloud wasn't sure how to respond to that. His friends had gathered as well. He felt his mind go blank. He was going to wind up on cleaning duty in the labs for stalking a sergeant major.

Wait -- the numbers. Maybe they could help? He frantically filed through them -- his own, the Second's -- for anything that'd help. None of it was encouraging. His numbers were nearly as high as Cloud's tweaked values, and there were other numbers besides. There was a section under that, more events or something. There were hundreds, and he was forced to skim through them. None of them seemed helpful. Wutai, Office, Wutai, Midgar, Midgar, Office, Gongaga, Midgar, Junon, Midgar, Junon, Junon, Midgar, Office, Nibelheim, Labs, Labs, Cliff --

"Look at me when I'm speaking to you, recruit," said **[ZACK FAIR]**, as the words so helpfully supplied. He was no longer smiling.

"Kinda squirrely, innee?" he heard from one of the Soldiers behind Sergeant Fair.

Cloud swallowed and forced himself to meet the pair of mako eyes currently boring into his own. "Yessir."

"What's your name?"

"Private Strife, 837th division, sir."

"If you have something to say, Strife, you'd better go ahead and say it."

"...No, sir," said Cloud.

"Then you'd better move along."

"Yessir."

"Dismissed."

Barely believing his luck, he turned around and walked back to the barracks. As he left, he heard someone mutter something else. Sergeant Fair laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Cloud's cheeks burned with shame.

The barracks were blessedly empty, at least. Everyone else was either on duty or off with their friends.

He squashed down the twisting feeling in his chest that had only gotten worse as he'd heard the muttering behind him, and looked at his numbers again. Now he had a better frame of reference for what a lot of them meant.

The first six sets of numbers, excluding health, which was how healthy you were apparently, were related to combat in some way. And there were other numbers beneath those ones. Everyone had events, apparently, and as he'd watched people go about their days, he watched them flip from YES to NO to YES again. It all seemed fairly arbitrary, but it explained how he'd lost four days, at least. Somehow, he'd told the world that he'd already completed his mission, and the world actually listened.

There were others, though, that didn't seem to make much sense to him, and didn't have any rhyme or reason that he could see. He dug through some more of his own numbers. One was **[SKILL(FIREARM.RIFLE) VAL=70]**. Maybe that made sense? He brought it up to **100** and realised what it was -- gun-handling knowledge. He could just _know_ things. He excitedly toggled it over to 255 and blinked hard as years of experience with handling rifles settled into his head as though it had been there for decades.

There was another list of values he had, with a different prefix. He settled on the topmost one: **[CHAR:MF.VAL=38]**. That seemed embarrassingly low, too. He'd seen other people with way higher numbers in that category. He set it to 255 along with the rest.

A strange spasm ran through his body, as though he'd swallowed a fistful of snakes, and when it lessened he felt... weird. And something wasn't right with his face. And his boxers didn't fit correctly anymore --

A quick peek inside the waistband, and he immediately set it back to **38**, somewhat shaken. Good to know that did that, at least. He got enough shit from the others for _looking_ like a girl as it was.

He was very tempted to set it to **0 **instead of **38**, and just end the snide comments altogether. Maybe he could gradually work his way there and pass it off as a growth spurt. People would notice if he looked different overnight. He looked for anything that could potentially do something about his height. No such luck, but then not all of these words were straightforward. He'd check again later.

Mako would be ideal, but people would be suspicious if he wound up with mako eyes despite his supposed denied entry to Soldier. Strangely, it seemed like he actually had a mako counter. Not everyone he'd seen had. Maybe, if this didn't pan out, he'd just make himself a Soldier without Shinra's help.

Below it was another value: **[JDNA]**. This one seemed to be a percentage. Also strange. And something to do with being in Soldier, he'd guessed -- only they seemed to have it at non-zero values. Probably another performance enhancer.

What else?

Perhaps he should start from the top and work his way down. The numbers seemed to be layered on top of one another -- examining one set would suddenly bring up more numbers, which in turn could be examined to bring up more numbers. Cloud decided to pull back, and found several free-floating words, labelled in green.

**[SKY]**, said one of them. No other information, though. It was set to **YES**, and Cloud wondered briefly if, wherever these numbers had come from, they were specifically made to be hard to figure out. He switched it over to **NO** briefly and waited. Nothing seemed to happen. Disappointed, he switched it back over to **YES**.

Another was **[TIMESCALE: 50]**. Maybe this was linked to how he’d lost four days. Was it possible to go back?

He cautiously set it to **4**.

The world whirled to life around him, decades passing in a manner of seconds, people racing past him like smoke, and then fire, and then dust, and before he had a chance to put anything back the ceiling closed on him like a steel trap.

**[LOADED STATE 1] **flashed in the corner of his vision. Little changes, then. And maybe he should avoid messing with time, too.

He found the "states" in the corner of his vision, and made a **[STATE 3]**, just in case one of these killed him.

Money, for sure. When he had a bunch of friends, he'd be able to buy them drinks. "It's all on me!" he'd say. He'd always wanted to say that. He quashed the twisting painful thing in his chest again. Soon. He'd get to say that soon.

He set **[GIL.VAL] **to **255** as well, and, after a bit of curious prodding whereupon he discovered this was one of the numbers that could go past that arbitrary limit, to **100000**. He heard a loud snap outside the bathroom as something leather broke. Whatever. He could buy a hundred new wallets at this point.

He looked back towards the other listings also starting with **[CHAR]**, and made a command decision to not touch any of them for now. Possibly ever. If one number could do something that drastic, imagine what changing more of them could do. What if he forgot the numbers they used to be?

The soap in front of him only seemed to have a few numbers associated with it, and the word **[ENABLED=YES]** next to it as well. He switched it to **NO** and watched the soap flicker out of existence a second later, along with its letters.

He looked around for where it might've gone, or the text that would allow him to switch it back to **YES**, and couldn't find it anywhere. Hopefully no one would need that.

He switched sections and picked one at random -- one he hadn't seen on anyone else -- that just said **[COLLISION]**, unattached to any additional numbers from what he could see, and written in green as well. If he had to guess, it had something to do with with car crashes, but the last guess he'd made had rearranged his plumbing. Right now it was set to **YES**. He steeled himself and set it to **NO**.

And fell through the floor, screaming.

He flinched, fully expecting to land on the floor, only to realise the impact hadn't come. And he was past the third floor and still falling. He looked around himself and realised with a jolt that he was in the slums -- he'd fallen clear through the Plate. And when he kept falling, after simply sliding through the roof of someone's house as though he wasn't there and hurtled through the maintenance tunnels below the city and found himself surrounded by bedrock, he realised that maybe he wasn't going to hit anything anytime soon.

He was still falling through solid rock several minutes later, and eventually reached for the "states" again. He didn't want to make one, though. Maybe he could just... make it "load" himself?

**[STATE 3] **flashed, and suddenly he found himself back in the bathroom, the soap sitting on the counter in what he felt was an accusatory manner. He only had a second to look at it before he fell through the floor again, and the floor below that, and the floor below that one. He sighed and switched **[COLLISION]** back to **YES** again, and an instant later he smashed all over the pavement of the Sector 3 slums at terminal velocity like an overripe cantaloupe.

**[STATE 3] **flashed again, and this time he did not fall through the floor when he was deposited back into the bathroom.

So, some things carried over, even if he used a "state". Good to know, though he wished he'd found that out a bit less painfully. He spent a few moments hunched over the sink trying not to feel sick at the memory of the impact.

That was definitely enough experimentation for the day. He should just give himself money again and go back to scouting out which numbers did what. Or maybe even training like a normal person. He still wasn't entirely convinced this wasn't one giant hallucination brought on by stress. Kids -- _men _his age went nuts on the battlefield all the time.

Something caught his eye on the way back up to where **GIL.VAL **was listed -- Events. There was a new one he hadn't noticed before.

**[MIDGAR:(EVENT ZACK 1)=YES]**

That, in turn, branched into another set of numbers.

**[RELATION:(CHAR ZACK FAIR)FRIENDSHIP.VAL=1]**

Oh.

Suddenly he realised he was _vastly_ under-utilising his gift.

What would happen if he set it higher?

No. He had to think about this. He had a lot of power, and he wasn't even all that good at using it on himself right now, much less other people. What if he did something wrong?

He was fourteen, though. He was old enough to start making responsible decisions.

Did a "one" mean Sergeant Fair hated him? He wouldn't have been surprised. Most people did, if they weren't ignoring him entirely. Maybe he could... impress Zack somehow? But Zack wasn't even _his_ commanding officer, specifically. There was no guarantee he'd see him for weeks.

...And besides, it wasn't right. Sergeant Fair should like him because he was actually likeable, shouldn't he?

_So, basically never,_ came the thought automatically.

That wasn't true. Sergeant Fair had a counter, so maybe it could just go up on its own, somehow. And he seemed like a nice person. He thought of the way he'd smiled at his friends, and how he seemed to exude confidence that naturally drew the others' attention, and the way he'd stared at Cloud coldly for daring to even _look_ at his betters --

**[RELATION:(CHAR ZACK FAIR)FRIENDSHIP.VAL 100]** faded into the background as he finished setting the number.

It would just be a test, he reasoned. To see what it did, so he'd know if it was even possible for them to be friends at all. And he'd even given himself a bit of growing room, too, for Sergeant Fair to like him for real. He made a state, just in case.

He'd need dinner, soon. Unless... maybe he should just skip it. Then he could go back to seeing which numbers did what.

No. He'd said he was done experimenting today, so he needed to be done. He'd already gotten himself killed twice. He wouldn't touch anything else for now.

Except his wallet, he reasoned, setting **GIL.VAL** to 10,000. There was nothing unfair about getting around the fact that Shinra charged its own troops that much for barely edible dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Becoming a god and Disabling The Soap™ is an aesthetic.


End file.
